South African Communist Party’s Deputy General-Secretary, Solly Mapaila, has strongly condemned the activities of civil movement Operation Dudula, saying they display elements of vigilantism.
He says attacks on foreign nationals should be condemned and not tolerated. Mapaila was speaking at the ninth provincial congress of the SACP in the North West held at Stilfontein, near Klerksdorp.
Mapaila also touched on the Russian Ukraine conflict saying, even though the SACP does not encourage war anywhere else, the Russian war against Ukraine is justified.
Mapaila’s comments, come as some parts of the country are experiencing violence and killings of foreign nationals. He says the search of people’s houses without permission is unlawful and must be condemned.
“Is also important to emphasis, particularly South Africans, that we are Africans first and foremost. There is no African who is a foreigner in Africa. You can never be a foreigners in your own continent. Europeans don’t treat themselves like that. We hate ourselves as Africans and this thing is tearing you apart to think that our people they see somebody on the basis of their nationality or language from this continent in particular or from any part of the world as an enemy. There is no human being that should be an enemy of another human being,” says Mapaila.
Ukraine-Russia conflict
Mapaila also reflected on the current Ukraine-Russia conflict. He says the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, is justified, a contradiction to government position, which encourages dialogue between the two countries.
“Russia is not the aggressor, the aggressors is NATO and the European Union, more especially encouraged by the dominance of American government. That is why they must own up to this war, not Russia. Russia is exercising its rightful defensive mechanism. That is why its intervention is justifiable,’ says Mapaila.
Operation Dudula gives factories in Rosslyn 14 working days to respond to memorandum of demands [ 29 March 2022]
Meanwhile, when outlining resolutions of the provincial congress, SACP provincial secretary, Madoda Sambatha, says they are concerns about the provincial government’s non-spending of conditional grants.
He however, says they will table before their national congress a recommendations for the review of allocating grants to provinces by national treasury.
“We are arguing that, that grant must be re- prioritised to the same province from a department that might have not spent it. Instead of a grant coming from national going to a province and when not spent, that grant is re-allocated to another province. That element creates disparities amongst provinces in terms of developments.”
The provincial congress elected the new provincial executive committee, with all the six office bearers, been elected unopposed.
They include amongst them the provincial chairperson, Smuts Matshe and provincial secretary, Madoda Sambatha.
African National Congress President Cyril Ramaphosa weighed in on the activities of Operation Dudula.
In the video below, Ramaphosa reacts to Operation Dudula activities
